Dr Janakiraman Ramachandran is a researcher at city-based GangaGen Biotechnologies

Where antibiotics have failed against the hospital-based superbug, protein developed by J Ramachandran causes lethal damage to the bug's cell wall

For the last two decades, hospitals across the globe have been up against a superbug which is highly resistant to all known antibiotics and has been responsible for numerous post-surgery deaths. Now, a 77-year-old Bangalore-based researcher has developed a protein which effectively kills the superbug from within. His work has earned him the second prize in the India Innovation Initiative awards organised by the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology, Agilent Technologies and Confederation of Indian Industries.

Dr Janakiraman Ramachandran, a researcher at GangaGen Biotechnologies, says the hospital-based superbug, methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), has been around for over 20 years. Once it enters the patient's bloodstream, it produces a large quantity of toxins that can kill a person with a weak immune system.

Dr Ramachandran has developed a phage-based genetically modified protein called StaphTAME, which can reduce the risk of a patient being infected by the superbug. "There has been some concern about using DNA-based therapies to treat humans but there has never been any concern about relying on recombinant proteins for treatments. StaphTAME is a recombinant protein that offers a solution for the prevention and treatment of multi-drug resistant staphylococcal infections. The molecule was developed based on a key protein which is a component of a staphylococcal bacteriophage (a virus that infects and replicates within a bacteria)," he says.

This bacteriophage, normally present on our skin and in our nasal passage, finds its way into a patient's bloodstream during a surgery and starts replicating rapidly while producing huge amounts of toxins. The immune system, being weak after a surgery, falls prey to the infection and ultimately gives in, resulting in the patient's death.

When phages first interact with a bacterial cell, they damage the cell wall in order to insert their genetic material. Dr Ramachandran and his team identified the active portion of the phage structure that causes this damage and developed StaphTAME, which is capable of binding to and causing lethal damage to the cell wall of the superbug.

The bactericidal activity of StaphTAME is unaffected in complex biological matrices including whole blood, plasma and normal and hyper-immune sera, and has proved efficacious in animal models of infection. "We will be developing StaphTAME in the form of a topical application to eliminate the nasal carriage of MRSA before surgeries," says Dr Ramachandran, adding that initial clinical trials on humans have been successful.